Lumumba 's Alliance With The Soviet Union

The UN had failed to resolve conflict in Rwanda there is still some little minor conflict going on in Rwanda this day. The UN had put up some camps for the tutsis and helped alittle for people to seek shelter and safety. The hutus knew that the UN could not do anything physical because they are primarily peacekeepers and trying to resolve the problem so the hutus was still killing everyone so nothing was resolved.

This new country fresh from being colonized had an army but very few Congolese officers just mainly army regulars. The country kept many foreign officers as the military trained local soldiers for leadership positions. Many soldiers saw no chance for advancement and it seemed to be the same conditions as they experienced before independence. An atmosphere of discontent grew rampant for foreigners still in positions of power. On July 05, 1960 the army had a revolt against these white officers near Leopoldville. They also attacked many Europeans targets in the area. Large groups of mutineers paraded over the area attacking any foreign interest they could find. There was wide spread looting and pillaging. The white population was targeted primarily. With the area in total chaos and no one to police the unrest, the local white population had to flee. The majority of the white refugees had to go to Brazzaville and Stanleyville to escape certain death. The unstable government and the clear inability to control the military and the people created concern locally and internationally.

In July of 1956, Lumumba was sentenced to two years imprisonment for embezzling $2,520 from the post office for the Association des Evolués. After the Association returned the money, Lumumba’s sentence was reduced to 12 months, which began his career as a prisoner, leaving and re-entering the prison system for the next five years. During his 1956-1957 imprisonment, Lumumba wrote Congo, My Congo, 200 pages to “make a contribution towards the search for a solution for the present and future problems of the Congo” (Lumumba 7). Because this book was not published until after Lumumba’s death, it did not have an impact on the independence movement, but the views Lumumba wrote about certainly did.

During the era of the Cold War, starting in 1947 and definitively ending in 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union faced off in conflicts with each other through smaller states.

Because Lumumba made the decision to raise the pay of all government employees except for the army, many units of the army objected and multiple rebellions spread throughout the country, causing nationwide panic. For political reasons, Lumumba had to seek help from the Soviet, which alarmed several countries and made them think that he was a communist. Because of this, he was in deep trouble. Around September, 1961, Lumumba was dismissed from the government by President Kasa-Vubu. Furious, he retaliated by declaring the president deposed. As to be expected, this did not go well with Colonel Joseph Mobutu, and so on the 14th of September, the colonel incapacitated both Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu. Despite being put under house arrest, Lumumba snuck out to Stanleyville but was caught by Colonel Joseph Mobutu’s troops. Then, around January, after being beaten repeatedly, he was driven to the secessionist regime in Katanga and was killed, however, no one is certain who was responsible for this, but theories suggest that it was the CIA or the Katanga authorities that killed him because of his involvements with the Soviet

Many Africans were put into the work force, leading up to a wage labour force in the Congo twice as large as any other African colony. On June 30th, 1960, the Congo achieved independence, becoming the Republic of Congo- Léopoldville. Patrice Lumumba was voted as president. The country was very unstable; regional tribal leaders held far more power than the central government and democracy began to break down. Lumumba asked the USSR for assistance. The United States viewed their presence as an attempt to take advantage of the situation and gain proxy state in the area. The US looked to replace Lumumba, and on September 14th, 1960, the government was overthrown and Lumumba was arrested. “Lumumba was taken to Thysville prison, then flown to Katanga Province, and finally beaten so savagely they couldn’t return the body to his widow without international embarrassment” (Kingsolver 323). However, poor relations with the groups in the Congo, the involvement of Belgium in the Congo affairs, and intervention of parties of the Cold War led to five years of political crisis and war from 1960-1965, ending with power seized by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. “I rad the page they’d folded back: Soviet Plan Moves Forward in Congo.” It said Khrushchev wanted to take over the Belgian Congo and deprive the innocent savages of becoming a free society, as part of his plan for world domination” (Kingsolver 161). In the 1970’s, the warring tribes of Angola had agreed to a peace plan, putting

The emergence of the Cold War with the Soviet Union had far reaching impacts on American society, including hindering the pace of social reform in the United States. While some aspects of the Cold War may have helped promote certain social reforms, the net impact, deterred inevitable social reforms. Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War induced a fear of communism in Americans that had numerous effects on American policies. McCarthyism, a period of controversial accusations on supposedly “communist” Americans, developed from the panic that communism would overcome the United States’ government, leading to loss of individual freedoms. In addition, social reform, especially the Civil Rights Movement, received inadequate attention as American leaders fixated on defeating communism and preventing it from contaminating the United States. Therefore, the United States’ preoccupation with containing communism throughout the Cold War Era hindered social reform domestically. As a result, social reform successes were limited primarily to those exhibiting visible political value by demonstrating the United States’ belief in equality and democracy to the rest of the world.

After a series of events during the time of World War II, tensions between the United States and the Communists such as the Soviet Union and China, developed into a military and political conflict such as the Cold War. During the Cold War, which went on for 50 years, the Soviet Union and the United States competed to expand their economical and political influence. Although, the United States military has increased in size and it’s strategy. The United States power today is highly supreme when it comes to competing with other countries in the world. The United States is the world 's largest producer of nuclear power, holding an immense amount of nuclear and atomic bombs, accounting for more than big percentage of worldwide nuclear

After World War II, the world was in a state of heightened suspicion that was lead by ideological differences. There were two main “superpowers” that shaped perceptions of the rest of the world. One was the United States, who had come out of the war fairly unscathed, which was due to little to no conflict directly on its soil, in addition to the possession of atomic weapons and a strong navy and air force. The other major player was the Soviet Union, whose industry was recovered during the first few years of the war in addition to a powerful army. These superpowers had a large impact on other countries due to their ideological differences: the United States favored a capitalistic democracy while the Soviet Union believed in communism. One country that was heavily influenced by both superpowers at the same time was Korea, which was ultimately split into two halves. The United States had a heavy impact on the south while the Soviet Union had an effect on the north. During the Cold War from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, The Soviet Union and the United States wanted to set up spheres of influence in foreign countries so that they could observe what the other was doing, which ultimately lead to the exploitation of North and South Korea.

What would the History of the world have be if the United States never landed on the moon, but instead the Soviet Union was successful at sending cosmonauts to the moon and were the first humans to ever step foot on a celestial body? This is what I wanted to explore in my research, this is all subjective we cannot go back in time to see what the outcome would have been if it never happened the way it did. The idea has been talked about even with the sceptics who think the whole moon landing in 1969 was a hoax to give the United States the title and make the Soviets stop pursuing the moon landing. In this paper I want to give a little history of actual events and then examine ideas of alternative events.

With the 1960s approaching Americans had to to face the increasing real threat of Cold War and nuclear threat of the Soviet Union. It all started with the election of John F Kennedy in 1960. Kennedy won the 1960 election and became president of the U.S. in 1961. Kennedy defeated Republican candidate Richard Nixon in part because Kennedy played up a socalled “missile gap”, claiming that Republicans under Eisenhower had let the Soviet Union get a missile advantage over the United States. If anything he was believed to be a cold warrior. At the time Cuba leader Fidel Castro was tying his Country to Soviet Communism. The eastern block was sending military support to Cuba and this was considered a major threat to America. As Castro gained power, the relationship between the United States and Cuba worsened. In an effort to stop this alliance Kennedy allowed to the CIA to set up a coup against Castro. The bay of Pigs took place on April 16, 1961 and was a disaster for the Kennedy administration. Castro was fully aware of the rebel invasion put it down easily.

The international community had a responsibility to stop the genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo by taking military action, not only because we should have learned from the holocaust but also over the years 40,000 women and children were

“After his coup in 1965, Mobutu remained on the CIA’s payroll for some time and received regular briefings from Larry Devlin, the CIA station chief in Leopoldville. On successive visits to Washington, he was accorded star status, promised support and constantly flattered” (“The Great Plunderer” 294). The United States treated Mobutu as a friend of the nation even though he was a corrupt, oppressive dictator. The change Lumumba wanted to create was traded for a “stable” but corrupt government that left Mobutu extremely wealthy and the people of Zaire extremely poor. The corrupt government only added chaos to an already anarchic

The UN had resources in Rwanda with the UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda). When the UNAMIR sent, a report saying they needed more because something big was going to happen in Rwanda, the UN didn’t believe them so they did nothing. The UN Security Council took a slightly non-intervention type of thought. They didn’t completely stay out of it, they had peace keepers on the ground in Rwanda. But they didn’t send enough and once they were there left them to their own

During the Cold War, the United States of America participated in a number of what are today called proxy wars. Because the USA could not risk direct conflict with the Soviets, the nation concentrated its influence in developing third-world nations and essentially growing in political power. Fear of the spread of communism fueled this involvement throughout the entirety of the Cold War. The war between the USSR and United States had changed the Democratic Republic of the Congo.